With the economy still unstable, Anne Gadon was hit with a nightmare scenario for anyone working in sales.

Gadon unexpectedly lost a major client that represented 20 percent of what she brought in to the wholesale food distribution company where she worked. That took Gadon down several notches below other sales agents at the company and led to her being let go last month, she said.

Digging into her savings as she looks for new work, Gadon, 51, is among the millions of people out of work and sliding into poverty, even as federal officials try to kick-start a stubbornly anemic U.S. economy with lower interest rates, social services and other efforts.

"My father is also helping me, and he asked, 'How long is this going be?'" said Gadon, who has just started what she expects to be a "marathon" job search. "I don't know how to answer that question."

New U.S. census data released Thursday indicated that it still could be a rough road for tens of thousands of people in Illinois.

An estimated 1.9 million people in the state were living below the federal poverty rate last year, almost 150,000 more than in 2010, according to the new American Community Survey. Chicago saw another 15,000 enter poverty last year, bringing the city's total to 261,400, the ACS survey showed.

The trend of increasing financial woes, dating back to the recession that began in late 2007, also includes a shrinking paycheck for those who are employed as people who were laid off from white-collar jobs take lower-paying work where they can get it. Last year the median household income in Chicago was $43,628 — $4,000 less than in 2009 and part of a steady decline over the past three years, the census figures show.

"The low-paying sectors are growing," while higher-paying industries continue to shed jobs, said Sheldon Danzinger, a University of Michigan economist who has written extensively about poverty trends. "Service, retail, food. They don't pay very high wages. That's a reason why a lot of working people are getting food stamps."

The numbers bear out in Chicago, the ACS survey shows. The number of workers in 2011 who earned $25,000 to $35,000 grew by nearly 9,300 compared with 2010, according to survey estimates. Meanwhile, the number of people with annual salaries of $75,000 to $100,000 dropped by almost 4,000 during the same period.

Many of those downsized and unemployed workers have flocked to employment centers in Chicago that offer training in new fields.

At the nonprofit Career Transitions Center of Chicago, many of the organization's roughly 175 active clients are from white-collar professions, said Anita Jenke, the executive director.

"They're scared," she said. "It's a very different job market than the last time they were looking for work, much more driven by networking and technology. They're trying to understand what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong."

But one expert expressed caution about reading too much gloom into data that are now more than a year old. With the national unemployment rate showing signs of dropping, it's possible that the other negative jobs trends are bottoming out and poised to rebound, said Bruce Meyer, a University of Chicago economist who researches poverty, welfare policy and related topics.

"We should expect to see the poverty rate continue to go down in the next year if unemployment declines," Meyer said. "It should inch downward this year, hopefully."

That may still leave many Chicago residents who have lost their jobs unprepared for jobs that open in different fields, said Grace Jenkins, director of the National Able Network, another job training firm.

"The folks that are unemployed and are now long-term unemployed ... they have got to have access to training and skills development that allow them to take the most expeditious path possible to employment," she said.

Phillip Wharton, 55, said he has learned that he may have to find work outside of his interior design field — where he once made as much as $70,000 per year — if he is to finally get off federal unemployment. Also living off his savings to make his rent and other expenses, Wharton lost his job two years ago after work in his industry slowed to a crawl, he said.

He said his resume details 20 years of experience — including jobs retrofitting Chicago Public Schools buildings and the Actors Equity Association building in the city.

But potential employers have shied away because of his age or suggested that he upgrade his training and certified professional licenses, he said.

"It's just been really dismal trying to look for work, trying to find a position in this field, so I'm just trying to look at an option that's different," said Wharton, who is studying information technology.